Fire Tonight

Genre: Isometric Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Fire Tonight is a character-driven Isometric Puzzle released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2021. This game has you alternating between controlling the boyfriend and girlfriend pair of Devin and Maya as they try to reunite when their neighborhood becomes the site of a raging fire.

Well, I say the fire is “raging”, but many of this game’s characters seem super-casual about the whole “the entire neighborhood is on fire” thing, with players encountering numerous characters along the way who just seem to be hanging out and chilling while everything around them is going up in a massive blaze. Meanwhile, Maya’s concern that Devin may have been caught in the fire seems to be mild at best, even when she abandons her car to head on foot when encountering a police roadblock.

As inexplicable as this game’s story is, the rest of the presentation is excellent, featuring a combination of some very nice 2D character designs and similarly-designed cel-shaded 3D artwork during the gameplay. This is backed by a 90s-style synthesized soundtrack that’s really catchy, even if this also contributes to the game’s confused tone.

For the gameplay itself, this game is split between sections where you control Maya and Devin, with Maya’s sections forming most of the gameplay. In Maya’s sections, she must navigate around buildings and the fires, track down keys, and make her way to each section’s exit. Shortly into the game, Maya gains an ability to use her portable music player to clear away sections of the fire (no, it doesn’t really make sense), but beyond this the gameplay is mostly about exploring each area to find the correct path. Devin’s sections, meanwhile, tend to have him looking at stuff in his apartment and reminiscing about his relationship with Maya.

While the characters here are endearing, there’s just not much to this game – the story (such as it is) isn’t especially compelling, the gameplay isn’t particularly deep, and the entire game can be completed in roughly an hour. I feel like Fire Tonight may have worked quite well as the introduction to a much larger game, but in and of itself there’s not really enough to make an impact here. Overall, there are certainly elements in Fire Tonight that I like, but as a whole I just can’t see myself recommending this game to anyone.

tl;dr – Fire Tonight is a character-driven Isometric Puzzle about a couple trying to reunite in the midst of a raging fire… that honestly no one in the game seems especially concerned about. The character designs and soundtrack here are great, but beyond that there’s just not anything especially compelling in this game’s 1-hour playtime to make it worth recommending.

Grade: C

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